Scientific notation

Scientific notation (also known as Standard index notation) is a convenient way to write very small or large numbers. Formally, scientific notation is floating-point notation with base 10.

Related Topics:
Large number - Floating-point - Base

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When using scientific notation numbers are written as a imes10^b

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The exponent b is an integer and a is any real number called the significand, or also mantissa but this may give confusion with its alternative meaning of fractional part of the common logarithm.

Related Topics:
Integer - Real number - Significand - Mantissa - Fractional - Logarithm

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Usually a is chosen in the range of 1 to 10, excluding 10. Such a fixed range allows easy comparison of two numbers since the one with the larger exponent is larger. In that case b is the number's order of magnitude.

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Restricting the exponent b to multiples of 3 results in what is called engineering notation.

Related Topics:
Multiple - Engineering notation

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Most calculators and many computer programs present very large and very small results in scientific notation. usually the '10' is omitted and replaced the letter E, for exponent. Note that this is not related to the mathematical constant e. For example 1.56234 E+29 is the same as 1.56234×1029

Related Topics:
Calculator - Computer program - Mathematical constant ''e''

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